Stanley M. Barnes, judge of the
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 1967

“O YEZ! OYEZ! OYEZ! All persons having business before the Honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States, are admonished
to draw near and give their attention, for the Court is now sitting.
God save the United States and this Honorable Court!” The marshal of
the U.S. Supreme Court sang out the traditional chant on June 12, 1967,
the last day of the 1966–1967 term. The moment, as always, was charged
with reverence and awe as the nine justices took their seats and a silent
courtroom waited for the session to begin.

First on the agenda was the traditional introduction of almost one
hundred lawyers who were admitted to practice before the Court. Next
came the most important part of the session—the handing down of decisions. Thirteen opinions were handed down that day, four by a 5–4 vote.
My father, Tom Clark, often a swing voter, joined the majority in three of
the four cases but delivered a vehement dissent in the fourth. He also
joined a unanimous opinion that struck down Virginia’s miscegenation
law. After the decisions were handed down, Chief Justice Warren made an
important announcement: it was the last time that Tom Clark would sit
on the highest court of the land.

The circumstances of my father’s retirement were unprecedented. He
was stepping down from the Court in good health, still in his prime at
sixty-seven years old, in order to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest after his son, my brother Ramsey, was appointed U.S. attorney general
by President Lyndon Johnson. The only other father-son appointment
affecting the Court occurred in 1930 and led to the opposite exchange.

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